Not Quite Virtual Reality
by AkaMoonSugar
Summary: 2 UP! When he was young, Duo had a guardian angel. Unfortunantly for the Fates, he unknowingly banished her, putting into motion a chain of events that were never meant to happen. Luckily a few in the heavens have planned for it. But will their plan work?
1. Duo's Unhealthy Obsession with the Secre...

Hey everyone! This is my new project... Possibly a Duo/Usa crossover... Maybe not. I haven't decided yet. Please RxR, if I get a few reviews I'll post more.  
Oh yeah to all of you reading "Blinded"-- I'm trying to update! I really am! I have finished writing all of it, I just need to find a comp that will let me update. Thanks!  
PLEASE READ THE NOTE AT THE END!!!  
  
"Duo!" a little girl called out. He looked out at her from the church/orphanages's kitchen door.  
  
"Come here!" she called again, urgently. Hearing the warning tone in her voice he heeded her instructions, racing across the tall grass lawn just before the building behind him burst into flame. As he reached her side he felt a blast of heat on his back, and spun around.   
  
"No!" he cried, and began to run back towards the burning orphanage. Cries of pain came from inside and he ran through the wall of flame.   
  
"No Duo!" the little girl yelled, chasing after him. The flames parted for her passage as she grabbed him around the waist and pulled him from the building. She muttered a few cowrds in her language and it began to rain, soaking them until Duo's clothes stopped burning. No sirens could be heard for there was no one coming to put out the fire. It was only an orphanage after all, and no one paid it any mind.  
  
"Why?" Duo asked softly, tears welling in his eyes. She said a few more words and the rain stopped.  
  
"Why couldn't you save them too?!" he demanded. The young girl hugged him, flapping her silver/white wings to cool him down. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.  
  
"I'm sorry Duo... This is what's supposed to happen." she said softly.  
  
"I hate you!" he yelled. "I never want to see you again!" Immediately she released him. She felt tears prickling the corners of her eyes as she heard his words and saw the burned skin on the side of his right upper thigh.  
  
"I'm sorry Duo... I'm so sorry..." she said as she felt a pull at her stomach. She was going to Fade and she only had a few more moments with him.  
  
"Many of the people you will meet will cause you nothing but pain. You must try to be kind to them, and show them that you are not heartless. I'll miss you, but we'll see each other again someday." she promised as she began to Fade from sight. The seven year old boy looked on in shock.  
  
"Wait!" he cried. "You said you wouldn't leave me alone!"  
  
"I never will..." she whispered as she faded from view completely, leaving only a burning orphanage, a brokenhearted young boy, and the haunting echo of an angel's last words.  
  
  
  
The same innocent little girl suddenly appeared before a short, fat man, dressed all in black. She immediately recognized him.  
  
"No! Please!" she begged, sinking to her knees.  
  
"Yes. Your mortal betrayed you. You're mine." he replied.  
  
She buried her face in her hands as tears slid down her cheeks. He laughed cruelly and waved his hand. With that, she was gone.  
  
"Duo Maxwell..." he said softly. "Kialt nomo si xiou."  
  
  
  
  
  
Almost nine years later...  
  
"No way! No friggin' way! I'd rather die!" Duo exclaimed as Quatre explained the mission.  
  
"I'm sorry Duo but I already accepted the mission." the blonde Arabian replied.  
  
"Well count me out!" he said stubbornly.  
  
"I'm with the baka for once." Heero said from the corner. Quatre sighed and looked to Wufei, who shook his head, and then on to Trowa, who did the same thing.  
  
"Like I said, I'm sorry if you don't want to go but it's our duty, now that the war's almost over, to help maintain the peace. And if going to Sanq and protecting Relena Peacecraft and her finacee is the way to maintain peace, then I'll do it." he said.  
  
Trowa's shoulders lifted slightly and then fell back to their original position, his version of a sigh.  
  
"I'll go." Trowa said softly. Wufei glared at the wall.  
  
"I'll go, but only because I want to know what kind of crazy man would marry that psycotic onna."  
  
"Hnn." Heero said; grunt-language for 'ditto'. Quatre turned his pleading eyes to Duo.  
  
"NO WAY!" the braided one yelled. Heero pulled out his gun and pointed it at him.  
  
Duo gulped.  
  
"You know on second thought I've always loved visiting Sanq." he said hurridly.  
  
"Good." Heero replied, putting his gun away. The group broke up to pack.  
  
  
  
"Welcome to Sanq!" Relena greeted them from behind her office desk.  
  
"Hello Miss Relena. It is nice to see you again." Quatre replied, bowing slightly. None of the four standing behind him followed his motions.  
  
"No need for formalities, Quatre. It's great to see you all, too." she said. The man standing in the corner coughed a bit.  
  
"Oh! Pilots, I'd like you to meet..." The man moved forward and placed his hand on her waist. It took all their training not to cringe. "My finacee, Nolan Taylor. Nolan, I've told you about the pilots- this is Quatre Winner, Duo Maxwell, Wufei Chang, Trowa Barton, and Heero Yuy."  
  
"What have you told him?" Wufei asked, immediately concerned with the safety of their identities. Nolan dismissed his question with a wave of his hand.  
  
"Don't worry, I don't know that much. And I have high security clearance within the Preventers." he said. Wufei nodded, though still unsure.  
  
"So you're going to be staying near us?" Relena asked.  
  
"Yes. We will be living in a house nearby your new mansion." Duo said, somewhat grudingly.  
  
"Wonderful!" Relena exclaimed. She turned and put her hand on Nolan's chest. "I just can't wait for the wedding... And what comes after..." she whispered, though the others heard. Duo began to turn green, and all of them fought the urge to puke.  
  
That was how they met Nolan Taylor, six months ago. Since then, they had been forced to witness what Duo called "inhumane loads of shit", especially when they were ordered to help Relena pick out a wedding dress.  
  
It hadn't taken Duo long to find the newest hot spot in Sanq- a virtual reality club where he was now one of the highest-ranking player. Of course, his name in the VR extended role-playing game was "Shinigami".  
  
  
  
"Dammit!" Duo exclaimed as he slammed the front door behind him.  
  
"What's the matter?" Quatre asked as the braided one came into the kitchen. He dropped his worn copy of the VR's gameplay guide onto the counter and sank into one of the padded chairs.  
  
"I can't figure out this damned riddle. It's the hardest hidden level of the whole VR and I can't get into it! No one can! Even the owner doesn't know how to get in." he replied.  
  
"Baka, why do you spend so much time at this place anyway?" Wufei asked as the other three pilots came in to investigate the fuss. Duo brushed off Wufei's question.  
  
"What's the club called again?" Quatre asked.  
  
"The game's called Kialt Nomo Si Xiou, it's some made up language." the American replied.  
  
"What's the riddle, anyway? It can't be that hard." Trowa questioned.   
  
"Those that false emotions see; Those that lend the light of day; Those that anger teh powers that be; Those that gelid hearts betray." Duo sighed. "It was engraved in a piece of glass I found at the bottom of Mount Elysium. The only thing I know about the answer is that it's two words." He let his head drop heavily to the marble counter with a loud thunk.  
  
  
  
"We're doomed if the baka doesn't solve the riddle." one voice commented.  
  
"He'll figure it out. Duo may act stupid but he's actually quite brilliant." another replied.  
  
"Will he be able to handle her?"  
  
"If everything goes our way."  
  
"And if he chooses not to help her?"  
  
"Then we're doomed, and ten thousand years of planning will be wasted."  
  
The other one knelt down in prayer. "Duo, tuskai, kialt nomo si xiou!"  
  
  
Like it? Hate it? Oh yeah, if YOU can solve the riddle, I'll... be very impressed... and... umm... I'll think of something for a prize, don't worry. But don't get too excited- I made this riddle up during class but no one's been able to figure it out. I even promised the school genius $100 and he didn't get it. Yes, it is solvable. But will Duo solve it? Hmmm.... Review! 


	2. The Answer to the Riddle

Thanks for checking out my new fic! I hope this is original enough for all of you, though you don't know what the main plot is yet... Oh well! PLEASE continue reading this-  
Oh by the way, for anyone who began reading "The Circus of Life"- Look out for new chapters soon!  
Arigato, and PLEASE REVIEW! I need to know if you like this or if it's best use is as toilet paper. JK, you know!  
  
  
Duo sat at the desk in his room, staring at the piece of paper that he had written the riddle on. Frowning as he thought, he scribbled aimlessly on the bottom of the paper.  
  
"I'm a Gundam pilot goddammit, I'm supposed to be good at this. Hell, I can hack any computer system in under four minutes but I can't figure out this stupid riddle?!" he exclaimed, leaning back in his chair.  
  
"Maybe you just need to sleep on it." Quatre spoke up from the doorway. Startled, Duo's chair flipped over backwards, landing his on the floor with a very shocked expression on his face. He moaned a little and rubbed the back of his head.  
  
"Yup, I definetely need some sleep." Duo agreed. Quatre smiled and left, closing the door behind him. Duo stripped off his jeans and his shirt, leaving him in only his grey undershirt and black boxers. Lazily he fell onto his bed and pulled the black comforter from it's position in a heap on the floor, covering himself against the sudden chill as he fell asleep.  
  
  
  
"Why couldn't you save them too?!" Duo demanded. The young girl hugged him, flapping her silver/white wings to cool him down. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.  
  
"I'm sorry Duo... This is what's supposed to happen." she said softly.  
  
"I hate you!" he yelled. "I never want to see you again!" Immediately she released him. She felt tears prickling the corners of her eyes as she heard his words and saw the burnt skin on the side of his right upper thigh.  
  
"I'm sorry Duo... I'm so sorry..." she said as she felt a pull at her stomach. She was going to Fade and she only had a few more moments with him.  
  
"Many of the people you will meet will cause you nothing but pain. You must try to be kind to them, and show them that you are not heartless. I'll miss you, but we'll see each other again someday." she promised as she began to Fade from sight. The seven year old boy looked on in shock.  
  
"Wait!" he cried. "You said you wouldn't leave me alone!"  
  
"I never will..." she whispered as she faded from view completely.  
  
Suddenly his surroundings changed. Duo appeared in a black void, where the only source of light came from the woman standing in front of him. Dressed in a silver/white gown, her hair was piled atop her head in the strangest hairstyle he had ever seen- two buns flowed into twin streamers of the grey hair. She had silver eyes which were now looking calmly upon the man before her, as if random men just popped into her dimension all the time.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Maxwell." she greeted. "My name is Selenity."  
  
"Call me Duo." he replied shakily.  
  
"Very well. I suppose you're wondering what it was that you ate that is giving you this dream? Well I must tell you, this is no mere dream. This is real. I come to you this eve with a situation of the upmost importance." she paused, looking to him for his reaction.  
  
"Okay..." Duo replied uncertainly. "I'll try to assist in any way I can." he said, surprising himself with how Quatre-like he sounded. Selenity let out a sigh of relief.  
  
"Duo, there's a lot that's been kept from you... in regard to your past. But I cannot tell you, only she can."  
  
"Who's 'she'?" he asked.  
  
"She's imprisoned, Duo. You must solve the riddle to release her."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"That's right... Solve the riddle, or all is doomed." she whispered before fading  
  
  
  
With a jolt, Duo awakened. Glancing at the clock, he saw that he had slept for more than five hours.  
  
"What the hell?" he wondered aloud. Duo stood up, feeling a sharp pain in his right thigh as he did so. Even more confused, he eased the edge of his boxers down to reveal the patch of scarred flesh that he had failed to notice for the past nine years. Sinking back down to sit on the bed, his mind raced in amazement. He was motionless for a few minutes.  
  
'What just happened? Who was that girl? Was she one of the orphans?' he thought. 'I don't remember her... And what about those wings? And that burn? I've never noticed it until now. I wonder why? Who was that woman? Is there really a person imprisoned in the VR? God, so many questions, and no answers.' With another sigh, he got up and sat at his desk, puzzling over the riddle once more.  
  
  
  
"Duo we have a mission." Quatre told him a few days later, sticking his head into the braided one's room. Duo's blurry eyes raised to look at his friend. There were dark circles under his eyes, since he had spent most of the past days testing out different answers to the riddle and talking to people within the VR. Unfortunately he hadn't had much luck- all of his answers so far were just guesses.   
  
"Coming Quatre." Duo replied, stretching and following the blonde boy downstairs.  
  
"What are we doing today?" he asked, taking up a seat on the couch between Quatre and Heero.  
  
"We're going to do a sweep of the church where the wedding's taking place, go over the blueprints and establish security points for the Preventers to be at during the ceremony. It shouldn't take more than a few hours." Quatre said.  
  
"Will Relena be there?" Duo asked.  
  
"I think that she and Nolan are going to be consulting with the minister today, yes." he answered.  
  
"Greeeaaattt..." the braided one moaned before following them out to Quatre's large black SUV. Quatre carefully drove them to the church.  
  
As they walked down the center aisle of the church, Heero disappeared for a moment and then reappeared with several rolled up papers under his arm. They seated themselves in the open floor space near the altar, and Heero unrolled the first paper in the middle of them.  
  
"I've already gone over the blueprints once." he explained in monotone. "I placed yellow dots at every proposed security point. The blueprints are ready for review." With that, he leaned back against the pew behind him and closed his eyes partway while the others looked over his work.  
  
"Good gosh, Heero. This is brilliant!" Duo exclaimed. Quatre did a quick count with his eyes.  
  
"So we'll need about 23 Preventers, right?" he asked.  
  
"Plus about five extra just in case something happens." Wufei added.  
  
"I'll call up Une and give her our figures. You guys talk to the minister." Duo said, walking back down the aisle and outside. Rummaging through the glove compartment and on the floor, he finally found the cell phone.  
  
He pushed #2 and heard the auto-dial connect him.  
  
"Une here." she answered.  
  
"Une, it's Duo." he replied.  
  
"Hello Duo. What can I help you with?"  
  
"I have a count for the number of Preventers we need for the wedding."  
  
"Okay, go ahead. I'll write it down and get you a list of the officers assigned- Heero will probably want to do a background check on all of them."  
  
"We need 28 or 29 officers."  
  
"No problem, I'll fax the list to you at your house."  
  
"Hey Une? Can I ask you a question?"  
  
"Sure, Duo. What can I help you with?"  
  
"If you were trying to solve a riddle, what would you do first? Especially if the answer didn't seem to fit with the clue..."  
  
"Oh...hmm... I guess I would look for patterns in the letters or syllables, and then maybe look for a-"  
  
"A signifier! Dear Shinigami I'm so stupid!" as he said this, Une smiled to herself.  
  
"Thanks Une! Talk to you later!" Duo exclaimed before hanging up on her. Not thinking about his comrades, he jumped into the car and drove off, scribbling on a napkin as he went. In his excitement, he ran a redlight but ignored the police sirens behind him. Then something in his mind clicked and he slammed on the brakes.  
  
"Holy crap! I got it!" Duo practically screamed. A glance in the rearview mirror made him realize that he was being followed by cops.   
  
"Yipes!" he corrected himself before jamming his foot into the gas pedal. He manuevered his way through traffic until he lost the policecar, then doubled back and took a shortcut to the club. Just as he was getting out of the car, the cell phone rang. Growling under his breath, Duo answered it.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Duo! You weak onna, where are you?!" Wufei screamed through the phone.  
  
"I'm at Kialt, Wufei- the VR club, remember?" Duo answered, not seeing Wufei's point yet.  
  
"Yes I know what club you're at you practically live there!" Wufei steamed. "What I mean is why did you take the car and leave us stranded at the church?!"   
  
"Oh- Oops, sorry Wufei!"  
  
"Sorry is right! Get your sorry butt back here and pick us up before we have to ride with Relena Peaceofcrap and her weak fiancee!"  
  
"But Wufei I just figured out the answer to the riddle!" Duo whined.  
  
"Do I care?!" Wufei shot back. "If you're not here in two minutes your braid is mine!"  
  
"That threat is getting really old, Wufei." Duo said seriously before hanging up on the Chinese teenager. Sighing, he jumped back into the SUV and drove back to the church. The four were waiting on the curb, and Relena was standing next to her limo just ahead of them.  
  
"Okay Miss Relena! He's here!" Quatre called.  
  
"Alright Quatre, I'll see you guys later!" she replied, getting in her limo. Quatre got into the passenger seat while Wufei, Hiiro, and Trowa got into the backseats.   
  
"Wufei told us you figured out the riddle." Quatre said. "Good job."  
  
"Thanks." Duo replied, pulling out of the parking space and driving towards their house.   
  
"What was the answer?" Wufei asked. "The Little Mermaid?"  
  
"No!" Duo shot back. "I had been looking at the words but not at their components- See, in every line, the words 'Those that' repeat themselves. So I looked for a signifier... I was right! If you take every first syllable after the syllable 'at', you get the answer 'Fal-len an-gel'. Fallen angel! It has to be right! Just think about it- I found the clue at the bottom of Mount Elysium. Elysium is a synonym for 'heaven' and where else would a fallen angel be but below Heaven?" Duo asked rhetorically as he parked in front of Kialt Nomo Si Xiou.   
  
"I'll be back in a few hours. I HAVE to find out if this is right!" he exclaimed, handing the car keys to Quatre and running to the door. Quatre sighed and slid over to sit in the driver's seat.   
  
"Does he scare you sometimes?" Wufei asked from behind the blonde. Quatre nodded slightly.   
  
"Me too." the Chinese one agreed.  
  
  
  
Duo was so well known at the club now that most of the members recognized him.  
  
"Hey Duo!" Nick, the bartender, called. "Here to try out another answer to that secret level?"  
  
"Hey Nick." Duo replied curtly before walking to the back and finding an empty dome. Grinning like a madman he inserted his card and climbed down into the dark hole as the black top closed over him. Within a few seconds he was standing in a lush green forest that he could see, hear, touch, smell, and if he wanted to, taste. The technology applied in the VR game was unlike any other in the world. But Duo wasn't thinking about that just then. He ran through the forest at a breakneck pace, reaching the outskirts of the trees in only a few minutes. A glance at the compass he had purchased in the city of Riker showed him which way to turn and he was off again.  
  
It was when he reached the base of Mount Elysium that he realized he had no idea what to do. Quickly he parted the weeds covering one of the larger boulders and found the inset piece of glass- about the size of Hiiro's laptop- with the riddle engraved into it. Thinking hard, Duo remembered one of the old movies they used to watch at the orphanage.  
  
"Open sesame! Fallen angel!" he cried, feeling rather stupid doing it. Nothing happened.  
  
"Okay, maybe not." Duo said to himself. He picked up a small, sharp rock from the ground and moved closer to the glass.  
  
"Fallen angel." he whispered as he etched the words carefully into the glass. To his surprise, as soon as both words were finished, they vanished from sight, leaving the blue glass as smooth as when he had found it. A rumble sounded from deep within the mountain and Duo was thrown backwards onto his butt as a hole opened in the ground before him.  
  
"Well here goes!" he exclaimed, looking down into the hole. The 'sun' was directly overhead, and now that the rumbling had stopped, he could get to his feet and move around again. Yet the hole remained black as night. He took a deep breath and jumped down, holding a position he was taught as a pilot.  
  
Duo hit soft earth, not the hard rock he was expecting. He turned his landing into a roll and jumped up, already taking in his surroundings. It looked like he was in a very dark tunnel, but looking down it he could see a faint light at the end. On impulse, he began walking towards it.  
  
'And if you see a dark tunnel, Stay Away From The Light!' a line from a movie popped into his mind. Grinning and chalking it up to frayed nerves, he continued. The light got larger and larger until he finally saw that it was the outline of a door. Nervous but alert, he twisted the ornate golden handle and entered the secret level.  
  
The last thing he saw was an explosion of light in his eyes and then blackness as he was kicked from behind.  
  
So much for the secret level.  
  
  
Aka: Ha! Only one chapter in and I've already got cliffies!  
Duo: Oww, getting kicked in the head hurts!  
Wufei: And by an onna, no less!  
Aka: Wu-FEI! They weren't supposed to know that yet!  
Wufei: Give it up woman. It's obvious.  
Aka: Grr... *Takes menacing steps towards Wufei*  
Quatre: Wufei, please surrender.  
Heero: Give me a bigger part or omae o kuroso.  
Trowa: ..............  
Aka: I like you Trowa- you don't argue, threaten my life, act like Relena or give away the plot. Will you be my bestest friend?  
Trowa: Sure....... 


End file.
